Friday, June 10, 2016

Open Wide Bag

One of the interesting things I participated in at Spring Market was the School House sessions. I didn't fully understand what these were until after the first few sessions. Essentially, these are live quilting related infomercials. Most of them try to give good information as well as sell their product. In fact most of the ones I went to provided very useful information and I took lots of notes.

Some of them also provide gifts just for attending their session and most of them do a drawing for door prizes at the end. Two of the sessions I attended were by the ByAnnie folks. At each of these sessions I received a very nice gift. Below is a photo of one.


I don't have a photo of the other, but  it was very similar. In the bag shown above is everything needed to make the included pattern except the fabric! It has the pattern, the Soft and Stable, some colorful mesh, a zipper and some interfacing. How cool is that!

The reason I don't have a photo of the other packet is because I made the bag before thinking of photographing the packet. Here is the bag.


It is called the Open Wide bag. This is the medium size, 6.5" tall by 10.5" wide by 4.5" deep. The pattern includes directions for three sizes.

Inside it has two mesh pockets.


One end has a strap for tucking the end of the zipper in.


It was a little challenging to complete. Probably not a beginner project. Well ... it wasn't really hard construction, just awkward to maneuver the bag under the needle for certain parts of the construction. I don't know of any way to make it easier and achieve the same result. Wonder clips, a stiletto and sewing slowly worked for me and these were suggested in the pattern. I also cut my binding 2.25" wide throughout based on my experience with a different one of the ByAnnie patterns I made several years ago. 

They have a "Let's Get Organized" program for shops I'm thinking of participating in. It is kind of like a "bag of the month" program as opposed to a "block of the month" program. I want to try out at least one more pattern, the one in the packet shown in the first photo above, before deciding if this is something I want my shop to participate in or not. In either case, I like this pattern well enough that I would order it for my shop even if I don't participate in their program.


1 comment:

Sandy H said...

A shop about an hour away from me is doing that ByAnnie program. Two of our guild members are doing it and seem to really enjoy it. I've done a few Annie patterns now (Craftsy classes) and had come to the conclusion you did about the binding--that's the trickiest part of her patterns, I think. I really like that little zippered bag--may have to add it to my list. No matter how tricky her patterns (and how many times I end up using not-such-nice-language in the midst of making them) I keep going back to the well because they are, ultimately, really well constructed and very nice projects!